Love County Oklahoma Genealogy and History - presented by Genealogy Trails

Love County Oklahoma Biographies

JUDGE OVERTON LOVE
The subject of this sketch was born in Marshall County, Mississippi, on the 6th of September, 1823. He was educated in the common schools of that state, and at the age of twenty years, came with his father to Indian Territory. The family settled on the north bank of Red River, in what is now Love County, the county being named for the Love family, as was also the valley in which they settled, Love’s Valley, about six miles east of Marietta, the county seat of Love County. At one time the Judge owned as many as eight thousand acres of Red River bottom land in this valley, as fine land as there is in the state of Oklahoma; here the judge lived for a period of fifty years or more, engaged in farming and stock raising. Judge Love was one of the outstanding characters of Indian Territory, no man excelled him in the choice of land, location, business affairs or in anything pertaining to his interests or that of his people, the Chickasaws. While he was a farmer and business man, he was none the less successful as a national councilman, county and district Judge, or as a delegate to represent his people in Washington. The Judge was known far and near as a man of integrity, liberal in his views, unselfish in his habits and manners of life, equal in his considerations of all men, the poor as much so as the more fortunate, no hungry man was turned away empty from his door, and no one who really wanted to work, applying to him, was ever rejected; he was a friend to man.

The writer first met the Judge at his home in the valley, the year 1888, and was afterwards a frequent guest in the home, and can speak advisedly, when we say, that any one having been a guest in the Love home, will always have an appreciation for the splendid spirit that prevailed in the home life. The Judge carried on extensive farming interests, and consequently had to do with different types of men, all of whom had a chance to succeed with Judge Love, he gave every man a chance to prove himself, failing in that he had to move to some other quarter. This brings to mind a little incident that shows the true character of the man; he was always mindful of the interests of himself as well as the interests of others, as is shown in the matter of building for school and church purposes, as he did, a house on his land where church services and school accommodations were made possible for all who would take advantage of them. So interested was Judge Love in the matter, that he built the house and furnished it throughout, free of cost to anyone, and turned it over to the community, with the understanding that his renters would attend services of some kind, and patronize the school. The Judge was what we termed then an infidel, his wife was a member of the Presbyterian church. The minister, of whatever faith he might be, always had an invitation to stop in the Love home, and the most of them did so, and the Judge always attended services at the eleven o’clock and evening hour, and saw that every one behaved, and that the dogs stayed on the outside, and that the young men who were disposed to be rowdy, came on the inside or left the premises. Seeing this interest on the part of the Judge, one day I asked him this question: Judge Love, you do not make any pretensions as to being a believer in the Christian religion, why is it you have built this house and are so careful as to order during the hour of service? His answer is as follows: "I may not be a believer in the sense you Christian people profess, but I am a believer in common decency and that which tends to civilization, and I find that the ones who profess to be Christians believe in the same things, and that they make the best renters on my farm, they are not always in trouble, and they do not try to beat me out of my rent, and in return for this, I am willing to help them in the matter of their religious life." The writer feels justified in saying that from our acquaintance with Judge Love, made possible by frequent visits in the home, where one learns to know people, that the Chickasaw Nation never made a greater contribution to prosperity in its march to a higher civilization than that given in the person of him whose name appears at the head of this article. To have known such a character, to have been associated with him and the family, to have been acquainted with him in his views of life, as they had to do with business affairs on the farm, political interests of his people, along with the social development of his community, is a privilege to be highly esteemed by those who have been so favored.

While Judge Love was not a Christian, in the sense in which that word is commonly interpreted, yet there was something in his makeup, that likens him to the things that are eternal. In the constitutionality of my friend there was more than one of the essentials to Christianity; there was fidelity to a trust, loyalty to a cause, the unselfish spirit, magnanimous in its reaches, that enabled him to overlook the defects in a fellowman, if he discovered any, that proved him a friend to man.
The treasurer of the Oklahoma Historical Society, Mrs. Jessie R. Moore, is a niece of Judge Love, and is in every sense a worthy kinswoman of the illustrious Love family.
[Source: "Chronicles of Oklahoma", Vol 4, No. 3; September, 1926 - Submitted by Linda Craig]

HON. ROBERT A. KELLER
A lawyer by profession, with residence at Marietta in Love County, Robert A. Keller entered the Oklahoma Senate from the Eighteenth Senatorial District after his election in 1914. Senator Keller has spent all his active career in the Southwest, as a young man was a Texas cowboy, was admitted to the bar in that state about twenty years ago, has been a resident of Oklahoma more than ten years, and his official record also contains service as county judge.
Robert A. Keller was born in Knox County, Tennessee, July 11, 1872, a son of William S. and Ann (Matlock) Keller. Senator Keller has a brother, A. L. Keller, who is in the office of the State Fire Insurance Commissioner at Austin, Texas, another, C. F. Keller, a resident of Knoxville, Tennessee, and associated with the Knoxville Coffin Company, two sisters Mrs. Margaret Daniels, of Los Angeles, California, and Mrs. Mary Cotten of Gainesville. Texas. Senator Keller's father was a Confederate soldier, and had the distinction of being one of the youngest participants in the battle of Chickamauga, where he fought when only sixteen years of age. He was in Company F of the Second Tennessee Cavalry, and during much of the war was under that intrepid leader General Joe Wheeler. William R. Keller is now a resident of Knoxville, Tennessee. His wife was the daughter of Col. A. Matlock, who was in the quartermaster's department in the Confederate Army in Tennessee. Senator Keller is a descendant of Casper Keller, who lived in Hagerstown, Maryland, and who received a land grant in Maryland from Charles II after coming to this country from Switzerland. One of Casper Keller's sons married a daughter of Governor Spotswood of Virginia, while another daughter married the gallant Richard Henry Lee of Revolutionary fame. Helen Keller, the noted blind girl who has achieved international reputation through her remarkable talents and accomplishments, is a second cousin of Senator Keller, being a daughter of his grandfather's brother.
Senator Keller attended the public schools of Tennessee until ten years of age, when his parents removed to Montague County, Texas, where he grew to manhood. Montague County was at that time on the great border of the cattle range, with somewhat limited school facilities, but he had such advantages as were offered by the common schools there until fifteen. He subsequently took a shorthand and typewriting course in the Gainesville Business College at Gainesville. From 1889 to 1892 he spent as a cowboy and rancher on the plains of West Texas. Senator Keller studied law at home, and was admitted to the Texas bar in 1895.
In 1904 he removed to Marietta, Oklahoma, and has since been one of the active citizens of Love County. In 1909 he was appointed county judge of Love County, and the following year was elected to that office and served with admirable efficiency until 1912. In 1914 Mr. Keller was elected a member of the State Senate from the Eighteenth District. During his first term in the Senate he was chairman of the committee on insurance and a member of the committees on legal advisory, judiciary No. 2, fees and salaries, public buildings, school lands, and prohibition enforcement. He has been primarily interested in such constructive legislation as would carry out the expressed program and desires of the democratic party, with which he affiliates, so as to make the party a balance between the two extremes of socialism and stand patism.
Senator Keller was married March 8, 1898, to Lillian Davis, daughter of Capt. J. H. Davis, who was a soldier in the Confederate army with a North Carolina regiment. Mr. and Mrs. Keller were married at Bowie, Texas, where Mrs. Keller for some years had been a popular and successful teacher. Into their home have come three children: Helen, aged fifteen; James, aged fourteen; and Robert, aged nine. Senator Keller is a past master of the Masonic lodge at Marietta and a past high priest of the Royal Arch Chapter. He is past chancellor in the Knights of Pythias Lodge No. 137 at Marietta, and is a grand trustee of the Knights of Pythias Grand Lodge of Oklahoma and a past grand tribune of the Grand Lodge. He is a steward in the Methodist Episcopal Church South at Marietta.
[Source: A Standard History of Oklahoma Volume 4 By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Submitted by Barb Ziegenmeyer]

THOMAS RANDOLPH
Thomas Mayberry Randolph, son of Holland Coffey Randolph and Marie Lanham Randolph, was born in Grayson County, Texas, April 18, 1873,and died at Marietta, Oklahoma, September 9, 1943. He moved with his parents to the Chickasaw Nation February 2, 1874, and remained a continuous resident of the Indian Territory and later the State of Oklahoma until the day of his death. His marriage to Mrs. Nellie Love Hill, daughter of Judge Overton (Sobe) Love of the Chickasaw Nation, in 1899, united two of the oldest families in Indian Territory and North Texas. Mr. Randolph is survived by his wife, five children, and fourteen grandchildren. His children are Mrs. William Lucas, Gainesville, Texas; Mrs. Jack Wilson, Marietta, Oklahoma; Mrs. John Anderson, McAlester, Oklahoma; and two sons, Sobe Love Randolph, of Marietta, and Thomas Mayberry Randolph who ie now serving in the armed forces in Italy.James Mayberry Randolph, grandfather of the subject of this eketch, was born in 1802, the son of Isham Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia, who moved with his wife and children to McMinnville, Tennessee, early In the 19th century and there reared his family. In 1835, three young friends and adventurers, Holland Coffey, Silas Colville and James Mayberry Randolph, came west to Van Buren, Arkansss. The latter married Tabitha Shelton and continued his residence in Van Buren while Holland Coffey and Silaa Colville moved to North Texas. Having been perauaded to move west by Holland Coffey, after the death of Silas Colville, James M. Randolph settled with his family in Grayson County, in 1844, while Texas was still a Republic. When hfs third son was born in 1845, he named him "Holland Coffey" after his old friend. James M. Randolph was elected the first sheriff of Grayson County, Texas, in 1846. His commission signed by the first Governor of Texas and attested by the Secretary of State will be presented to Grayson County at an early date by his descendants. He died in 1847, leaving a wife and five children, --Catherine,-Elizabeth, Wlliam Colville, George Wirt, and Holland Coffey Randolph. Thomas Mayberry Randolph, the subject of this sketch, wae a man of high honor and integrity. He lived his life of three score years and ten true to the traditions of his ancestors. A prosperous rancher during most of his life, he also had other interests in oil and in land in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. He was prominent in public affairs in southern Oklahoma in early days. Believing in good government and in the selection of the right men to govern, he always took an active interest in local and State politics. He was a Mason, an Odd Fellow, a Knight of Pythiaa, and a member of the Methodist Church. Mayberry Randolph, the name by which he was best known among his friends, was Christ's definition of a Christian, for throughout his life, he gave of his ebullience to those in need who passed his way. Many persons owed him money and some never paid but his innate nobility prevented his ever reminding them of their obligations. Mayberry Randolph was too generous for his own financial gain, but who can measure his spiritual reward. So has passed a true son of the old frontier, a descendant of a proud colonial family who settled in Virginia three hundred years ago, a man whose epitaph should read "One of God's noblemen. By Jessie R. Moore
[Source: Chronicles of Oklahoma]

Asa E. Walden
Asa E. Walden, was born March 1, 1893, at Melisa, in Collin County, Texas, being a son of W. E. Walden and Mary Alice Walden, nee Roberts; that the parents of said Asa E. Walden came to Pike, Indian Territory, (now Love County) in 1900, where young Walden attended his first school, thereafter he attended school at Thackerville, and Marietta, Oklahoma, he then attended Southeastern State Teachers College, and taught school a year and attended Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tennessee, and obtained his law course, and was admitted to the bar in Oklahoma in the summer of 1914; at the election in 1914, Asa E. Walden was elected representative from Love County, was re-elected twice and served the people in the Legislature of this State for six years, and in 1920, resumed the practice of law; that in December 1914, Asa E. Walden married Exa Wiseman of Thackerville, and to this union was born five children; Helen Walden; Alice Joe Walden; Jimmie Walden; Rose Marie Walden and Sue Walden; thereafter and in April of 1923, the Governor of the State of Oklahoma, appointed Asa E. Walden District Judge of the Eighth Judicial District of the State of Oklahoma, he being then 29 years of age and the youngest District Judge in Oklahoma; that Judge Walden was re-elected twice to his position, and was District Judge when he died September 1, 1934; that Judge Walden served the people of this District and the State of Oklahoma fearlessly and honestly and was widely and favorably known. That Judge Walden was a member of the Methodist Church of Marietta, and teacher of the Bible Class of that Church, the class being named for him; he was also a member of the Masonic Order. THEREFORE be it resolved that in the death of Judge Asa E. Walden the Judiciary of this State has lost one of its most valuable Judges; that the Bar of this State has lost one of its brightest members. THAT THE FAMILY of Judge Walden has lost all, he being a devoted husband and a loving father; That the Methodist Church has lost an active worker and valuable member. That the people have lost a real friend, for he was in fact a friend of the common man, believing at all times the rights of the oppressed should be protected. Be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be spread of record on the journal of the District Court of Love County, Oklahoma; a copy sent to the Historical Society of the State of Oklahoma, a copy to the Historical Society of the State of Texas, and a copy to the family of Judge Walden.
Respectfully submitted,
B. W. Jones
J. W. Dixon
Crawford W. Cameron
John Steele Batson
C. C. Wilkins
O. E. English
W. J. Williams
J. I. Goins,
THE BAR OF LOVE COUNTY, OKLAHOMA.(Committee)
Source: Chronicles of Oklahoma Vol. 12 #3 pages 494-495